Misperception

For my found poem I decided to use a reading we had in class. This reading really caught my attention because it showed me how unaware most Americans truly are about wealth gaps. Being that I am a minority I personally felt like I had a pretty good idea about inequalities when it comes to economic status. However,  in the reading “Whites Have Huge Wealth Edge Over Blacks (but Don’t Know It)” By Emily Badger, I realized how little Americans; including myself, are educated on these economic problems. I came to realize that Americans tend to pacify the true economic status that whites hold over minorities. Although the wealth gap is extremely large the income gap is much less drastic between whites and minorities. When looking at the income gap Americans believe that we are making great progress toward equal pay but what Americans fail to look at is wealth. 

I decided to use the perception vs reality graph in my found poem to emphasize the true awareness most Americans lack with wealth gaps. I feel like this graph shows how America’s perception on economic status between minorities and whites are almost completely dependent on income. The fact that the income and wealth gaps are so drastically different sheds light on the further economic inequalities that minorities have to deal with outside of having equal pay. I wanted to this poem to be an eye opener about what economic equality really looks like, and how we need to educate ourselves on how unequal our economy truly is. As Americans we need to be aware about equality and regress from ” the motivation to see the world as fair” without making the changes needed for America to truly become fair.